Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence

This outstanding single-volume history of the American Revolution, from the author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, chronicles how political and military threads wove together to found our country. In the summer months of 1776, while the 13 colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic, intending to crush the rebellion in its cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history congealed around them, and Joseph Ellis illuminates how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.

"As usual, Ellis combines powerful narrative with convincing analysis.... Read this book and understand how America was born."—Walter Isaacson

"The definitive book on the revolutionary events of the summer of 1776. Ellis's prose is characteristically seductive, his insights frequent, his sketches of people and events captivating, and his critical facility always alive.... Another brilliantly told story, carried along on solid interpretive grounds, by one of our best historians of the early nation."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)